Leader of Moldova’s breakaway region Yevgeny Shevchuk says the Transdniestrian delegation may ask to postpone the consultations due to be held in Vienna on September 11-12

Yevgeny Shevchuk

TIRASPOL, September 02. /ITAR-TASS/. Leader of Moldova’s breakaway region of Transdniestria Yevgeny Shevchuk on Tuesday called into question the next round of the 5+2 talks (Moldova, Transdniestria, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Russia, Ukraine and observers from the US and the EU).

“The Transdniestrian delegation may ask to postpone the consultations due to be held in Vienna on September 11-12 due to Moldova’s unfriendly steps,” Shevchuk said. He accused Chisinau of deliberately wrecking the talks. “Today an economic, information and diplomatic war is waged on against Transdniestria,” he said.

Shevchuk mentioned several criminal cases launched by Moldovan law enforcement structures against Transdniestrian officials, including the premier and regions’ leaders. The Moldovan authorities’ other actions also arouse concern. They “create conditions for suppressing cell phones in Transdniestria. This can lead to a new telephone war. We’re against it,” Shevchuk said.

“We’ve not received any clear answer to these questions from our partners,” Shevchuk said. “I believe that neither the neighboring countries nor the 5+2 participants show interest in heightening tension,” he said.

The Transdniestrian settlement talks in 5+2 format were broken up at the end of February 2006. Chisinau and Tiraspol managed to resume the dialogue with Russia’s assistance two years later at the level of political representatives. They gathered every month to resolve pressing problems of the population of Moldova and the breakaway republic. In March 2009, the negotiations were resumed again after the trilateral meeting of the presidents of Russia, Moldova and Transdniestria. At their meetings in Moscow and Vilnius late last year and in Dublin this year, the parties agreed to resume the talks.

The agenda of the 5+2 talks consists of three sets of issues: socioeconomic problems, humanitarian issues and human rights, and comprehensive settlement, including institutional, political and security issues.

Conflict in Transdniestria

The Transdniestrian conflict started in March 1992 when the first clashes occurred between Moldovan police and Transdniestrian militia near the city of Dubossary, which were followed by an outbreak of armed hostilities. By summer, it had developed into large-scale fighting in Bendery, where about a thousand people were killed and tens of thousands were wounded and became refugees.

The fratricidal war was stopped after a peace agreement was signed in Moscow in July of the same year and Russian peacekeepers were brought into the conflict area.